Has anybody bought a used Subaru from Walser and gotten good use out of their "warranty for life"? I'm assuming when it comes times for a Walser warrantied repair, they will do anything they can to find gaps in "required maintenance". Or maybe I'm wrong? They claim it's worth over $2,200, but I'm guessing that's just typical marketing and I should still price the vehicle assuming the "warranty for life" is worthless. http://www.walser.com/warranty-for-life.htm
I'm guessing the angle will involve requiring you to do all of your maintenance with them, as with the "free oil change for life" thing. You "save" a few hundred dollars on oil changes and overpay many thousands on routine scheduled maintenance over the life of the car. That also forces you to physically come back into the dealership a few dozen times, which is ultimately good for continued sales. That's just my guess, I don't know for sure if they require all the FSM in-house or not but I'll be surprised if that's not the case.
I can confirm this is correct. When I bought my 2012 Legacy at Morries, I was told in order to keep the lifetime powertrain warranty valid, all scheduled maintenance's must be done there (at either Morries Subaru). Only the "big" one's are required though, the 15k, 30k, etc.
Extended warranties are, in my opinion, a joke. I don't care if it's a TV or a car. It's a major money-maker for the company issuing the policy. If it makes you feel good and have peace of mind, then maybe it's worth it to you but strictly from a financial standpoint, I think 99% of the time, it's a bad idea. Take the money the policy costs up front and invest it conservatively. If you find yourself needing a high-dollar repair in the future, dip into that money. If you don't end up using it, guess what? You still have your money (and hopefully some interest on top of it)! I'll get off my soap box now. Sorry.
I don't have an extended warranty on my WRX (picked up new) I do have an extended warranty on my wife's Explorer (new) One thing to argue in your point above. Most people that buy that warranty do not pay for it up front. Instead they add it to their payment. So technically they are setting aside $20 a month (estimate). So investing it isn't really an option. When you look at the math that way, you can easily justify a warranty in some occasions. The most popular is that you are not a car person. Or in my case, the wife doesn't want me modifying both of our DD's. It really is nice for her. I really wouldn't mind doing the work on the car, I really do enjoy it. However, that isn't the path we chose with her car. So she just calls, gets a free loaner, they do everything and she picks it up on the way home. I am glad I didn't get it on the WRX, my warranty was void before I hit 10K (less then 6 months). However, the wife's warranty is a great plan. 125k miles and all we pay for is tires and brakes. We also had them reduce the price for a few years of oil changes to compete with Morries. So in the end we are easily going to break even... and that doesn't include anything high dollar in 125k miles. For a Subie owner, who is going to mod or race I agree with you. However, it isn't based on the money you could save. It is based on the fact that they will void their warranty (in most cases).
You make some good points and I want to be clear that I was strictly speaking in the most generic terms and not to any specific policy from any specific company for any specific product. I'm also in no way intending to speak ill of anyone who buys an extended warranty. One thing I will counter with is that by adding the warranty to the loan, you are now also paying interest on the cost of the warranty, which is even worse from a financial point of view. I'll concede that many (most?) people can afford incremental monthly costs much more than they could handle a one-time sudden 4-figure expenditure for a major repair.
I will mention that (at least from what I can tell), you can't opt out of the Walser "lifetime warranty": "The Walser Lifetime Limited Powertrain Warranty covers all new vehicles and most used vehicles with less than 60,000 miles that are less than 10 model years old."
The 60,000 mile thing was what Morries offered us too. I got it on my car, I just didn't get an extended warranty. I thought that was the normal manufacture warranty. I didn't think that was something special at the dealership.
An extended warranty and the lifetime powertrain warranty are two separate things. At Morries, the lifetime powertrain isn't an additional cost, I'm guessing the Walser warranty is the same deal. I was told it was just part of the whole Morries buy happy deal, with the stipulation that all major maintanence's be done at the dealer. Extended warranties are definitely not worth the price.
They just started offering it in January, so I don't think you'll find any real-world reports yet. The Morrie's one -requires- that you do all scheduled maintenance at the dealer. (including things like "brake maintenance" for $100 at 15k miles. Whatever that entails.) The Walser one, if you read the fine print, looks fairly liberal - you can do maintenance anywhere, as long at you have records. I believe it even says receipts for oil/filter are acceptable, if you do oil changes yourself. Apologies to any Morrie's guys on here, but that makes the Morrie's one essentially worthless imho, since you would pretty quickly rack up $2k+ doing their recommended maintenance. The Walser one on the other hand looks decent if you plan to keep your vehicle stock. We bought my wife's Tribeca there like two weeks before they started offering it. Which kind of sucks, since I have no plans to modify it, and I don't particularly trust the transmission on the thing past 100k. So in that case it would have been a nice reassurance.
I'm not saying they won't try to get out of covering something, but it looks good on paper at least... > Owner must perform all scheduled maintenance for this Limited Warranty to remain in effect...published by the manufacturer of the vehicle note - "manufacturer published," not "dealer recommended." Big difference. > If owner performs their own maintenance services, owner must retain proof-ofpurchase receipts. I can't even find the details for the Morrie's warranty online - that says something right there.
